THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL.

"Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart, When the pitiless ruffians tore us apart!

When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed,
And struggled and shrieked to Heaven for aid,
And clung to my sons with desperate strength,
Till the murderers loosed my hold at length,
And bore me breathless and faint aside,
In their iron arms, while my children died.
They died-and the mother that gave them birth
Is forbid to cover their bones with earth.

The barley-harvest was nodding white,
When my children died on the rocky height,
And the reapers were singing on hill and plain,
When I came to my task of sorrow and pain.
But now the season of rain is nigh,
The sun is dim in the thickening sky,

And the clouds in sullen darkness rest
Where he hides his light at the doors of the west.
I hear the howl of the wind that brings
The long drear storm on its heavy wings;
But the howling wind and the driving rain
Will beat on my houseless head in vain :
I shall stay, from my murdered sons to scare
The beasts of the desert, and fowls of air."

52

THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL.

I SAW an aged man upon his bier,

His hair was thin and white, and on his brow A record of the cares of many a year;

Cares that were ended and forgotten now. And there was sadness round, and faces bowed, And woman's tears fell fast, and children wailed aloud.

66

Then rose another hoary man and said,

In faltering accents, to that weeping train,
Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead!
Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain,

Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast,
Nor when the yellow woods let fall the ripened

mast.

"Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky, In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled, Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie, And leaves the smile of his departure, spread O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain head.

66

Why weep ye then for him, who, having won
The bound of man's appointed years, at last,
Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done,
Serenely to his final rest has passed;

While the soft memory of his virtues, yet,
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is
set?

"Ilis youth was innocent; his riper age

Marked with some act of goodness every day; And watched by eyes that loved him, calm, and sage, Faded his late declining years away.

Cheerful he gave his being up, and went
To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent.

"That life was happy; every day he gave
Thanks for the fair existence that was his;
For a sick fancy made him not her slave,
To mock him with her phantom miseries.
No chronic tortures racked his aged limb,
For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him.

THE RIVULET.

"And I am glad that he has lived thus long,
And glad that he has gone to his reward;
Nor can I deem that nature did him wrong,
Softly to disengage the vital cord.

55

For when his hand grew palsied, and his eye
Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die."

THE RIVULET.

THIS little rill, that from the springs
Of yonder grove its current brings,
Plays on the slope awhile, and then
Goes prattling into groves again,
Oft to its warbling waters drew
My little feet, when life was new.
When woods in early green were dressed,
And from the chambers of the west
The warmer breezes, travelling out,
Breathed the new scent of flowers about,
My truant steps from home would stray,
Upon its grassy side to play,

List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn,
And crop the violet on its brim,

With blooming cheek and open brow,
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.

And when the days of boyhood came,
And I had grown in love with fame,
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried
My first rude numbers by thy side.
Words cannot tell how bright and gay
The scenes of life before me lay.

Then glorious he pes, that now to speak Would bring the blood into my cheek. Passed o'er me; and I wrote, on high, A name I deemed should never die.

Years change thee not. Upon yon hil
The tall old maples, verdant still,
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay,
How swift the years have passed away,
Since first, a child, and half afraid,
I wandered in the forest shade.
Thou, ever joyous rivulet,

Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet;
And sporting with the sands that pave
The windings of thy silver wave,
And dancing to thy own wild chime,
Thou laughest at the lapse of time.
The same sweet sounds are in my ear
My early childhood loved to hear;
As pure thy limpid waters run;
As bright they sparkle to the sun;
As fresh and thick the bending ranks
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks;
The violet there, in soft May dew,
Comes up, as modest and as blue;
As green amid thy current's stress,
Floats the scarce-rooted watercress:
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen,
Still chirps as merrily as then.

Thou changest not-but I am changed
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,
Has scarce a single trace of him
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past-
Too bright, too beautiful to last.

THE RIVULET.

I've tried the world-it wears no more
The coloring of romance it wore.
Yet well has Nature kept the truth
She promised in my earliest youth.
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shows freshly, to my sobered eye,
Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away,
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray,
Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
(If haply the dark will of fate
Indulge my life so long a date),
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood's favorite brook.
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream;
And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattling current's merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright
As when thou met'st my infant sight.

And I shall sleep-and on thy side,
As ages after ages glide,

Children their early sports shall try,
And pass to hoary age and die.

But thou, unchanged from year to year,
Gayly shalt play and glitter here;
Amid young flowers and tender grass
Thy endless infancy shalt pass;
And, singing down thy narrow glen,
Shalt mock the fading race of men.

57